Humanities and Music Gain New Deans

Gary S. Wihl, former acting dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Emory University in Atlanta, took the reins of Rice’s School of Humanities on July 1, and Robert Yekovich, dean of the school of music at North Carolina School of the Arts, became dean of the Shepherd School of Music on July 21.

Wihl succeeds Gale Stokes, the Mary Gibbs Jones Professor of History, who had accepted a two-year term as dean in June 2001, after serving a one-year interim term. “Rice’s already fine School of Humanities has the opportunity to move into the front ranks of humanities teaching and scholarship,” says Rice provost Eugene Levy. “That will take a sharp, focused, and creative strategic vision as well as the ability to imagine possibilities and a commitment to marshal the energy and enthusiasm necessary to realize those possibilities. I am confident that we have found those qualities in Gary Wihl.”

Wihl joined Emory in January 2001 as associate dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and became acting dean in June 2001. His many achievements at Emory include strengthening funding for graduate fellowships for doctoral students in the humanities and social sciences; implementing an enhanced faculty research grant program to promote new areas of research and collaboration with doctoral students; and organizing a major national conference on philanthropy and the research university, which brought together the nation’s top academic and philanthropic leaders to discuss the mutually beneficial and longstanding relationship between philanthropy and academia. He also worked very closely with the graduate school faculty’s executive council in planning a strategy for the school’s academic programs.

“This is an important time for the humanities,” Wihl says. “While we often look to many research fields for innovation and new discoveries, the humanities represent the core of knowledge within universities, as well as their most mature disciplines—disciplines that build on generations of scholarship and address the fundamental questions of personal identity, ethical values, and all the resources of language that lead to forms of creative expression.”

Wihl received his bachelor’s degree from McGill University and his Ph.D. from Yale. He held a Mellon postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University and then returned to McGill as assistant professor of English. He was promoted to associate professor in 1989 and to professor in 1996. During his years at McGill, he served as associate dean of the graduate faculty and on the graduate faculty research development committee. He chaired the Department of English from 1996 to 1999 and served as associate dean of information technology for the faculty of arts.

Wihl is the author of two books and has co-edited two collections of essays. He spoke at the Sawyer Seminar at the National Humanities Center in North Carolina and has received numerous grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. His research focuses on the interpretation of liberalism and constitutional change in selected 19th- and 20th-century English and American authors.

Robert Yekovich, who is the fifth dean of the music school, succeeds the late Michael Hammond, who left Rice to become chair of the National Endowment for the Arts. Anne Schnoebelen, the Joseph and Ida Kirkland Mullen Professor of Music, has served as interim dean since January 2002.

“We are extremely fortunate to have lured Bob Yekovich to Rice as dean of the Shepherd School,” says Levy. “Bob comes to Rice with an exceptional record of accomplishment in music and music-education leadership. He impressed the search committee and me with his depth of thought, and he impressed and energized his music colleagues at the Shepherd School with his sense of music and leadership. The Shepherd School of Music is one of Rice’s true gems. I am confident that he will be able to bring the mix of inspiration and thoughtful guidance so essential to advancing the Shepherd School beyond its already manifestly high quality and distinction.”

Yekovich has served as the dean of the music school of the North Carolina School of the Arts at the University of North Carolina since 1991. During his tenure as dean, he helped establish the A.J. Fletcher Opera Institute, which has a $10-million endowment and has become one of the most prestigious graduate opera programs in the United States. He also conceptualized the plans for the school’s new $10-million music building and concert hall. In addition, he assembled a distinguished faculty and is credited with increasing the annual merit scholarship allocations to more than $500,000 from $15,000. He created two endowed professorships at the music school of the North Carolina School of the Arts, the first state-supported, residential arts conservatory.

Yekovich said he is impressed by the focus of the music school and its faculty. “I think it is an incredible opportunity,” he said of his new position. “The ingredients are there. There is wonderful potential for it to go even further. I look forward to collaborating with the faculty and staff to bring that about.” He plans to move the Shepherd School into its next phase by increasing the school’s endowment, a key component to providing more scholarships. Yekovich said another priority is addressing the school’s long-range needs, such as building an annex to include more space for the opera program and music library and to add more practice rooms and office space.

A composer, Yekovich received his bachelor of music and master of arts degrees in composition from the University of Denver and his doctoral degree in composition from Columbia University. He has served as the managing dean of Illuminations, a five-week summer arts festival on the Outer Banks at Manteo, North Carolina, for the past two years. He also has administered 11 consecutive European tours of the International Music Program’s Festival Orchestra. His recent honors include a commission from the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University. His works have been performed and broadcast throughout the United States and Brazil.

Yekovich was president of the board for the League of Composers/International Society for Contemporary Music (New York chapter, 1989–92) and was executive director (1986–89). He serves on the board of directors of the Wellesley Composers Conference, Speculum Musicae, and the New York Guild of Composers. He has taught at Columbia University, Connecticut College, and the University of Denver.

—Margot Dimond and Ellen Chang